How Typography Elevates Design from Good to Great (Masterclass Part 2/3)

this video is going to dive into the

second skill that you as an aspiring

designer must Master to go from good to

great and we're going to learn it at the

hands of Emmy award-winning designer

Christo in the second part of this

master class series if you missed the

first part go back and watch that now

but for those of you that already

watched it we're going to do a deep dive

on topography and why that's such an

important skill for you to master we're

talking about designers right so you

said how do you go from being an average

designer to a great designer and I'm

going to tell you right now you are like

Superman or Superwoman there's not a lot

that you can't do but you do have one

Kryptonite and if this is your

Kryptonite you're gonna fall apart and

your Kryptonite is typography you know

I'm gonna say it typography

there are some misunderstanding about

what typography is people who design

logo types sometimes refer to themselves

as typographers that's not correct in

typographers are not logo type designers

these are very different skill sets so

logo type designer is concerned about

the individual combination of very

specific number of letters together to

create one expression they're not

worried about if the letters were

reversed or in different order whatever

it is they don't care about that and so

they'll spend a lot of time designing

the perfect alphabet for five or six

letters that's it and in that exact

sequence a typographer in contrast

doesn't design the typeface what they do

is they manipulate the arrangement and

layout of type it's Point size its color

its weight in order for someone to

understand ideas it's arrangement of

letters and words on a screen or on a

page or an app or something like that to

communicate ideas and sometimes the idea

is to just capture your attention and so

some of the traditionalists who don't

understand expressive typography say

like well I can't read that if it's

concept if it's purpose is not for you

to read but it's stopping your tracks to

get you to decipher it then it's met its

goal so typography at least in my

instance has taught me everything about

design and they're so famous Massimo

vignelli quote that says if you can

design one thing you can design

everything and I really believe that so

if typography is your Achilles heel is

your Kryptonite it means that you're

uncomfortable with this there's good

news for you here the good news is if

you go through a series of rigorous

exercises things that we teach and

things have been taught to many

designers many generations before from

the Basel School in Switzerland then you

will learn this thing and it's painful

to learn but once you learn it you can

master design and if they say that

content is King which a lot of people

say well then contrast is Queen learning

about how to manipulate contrast in

point size like big and small in texture

smooth and rough in weight like extra

bold and thin understanding these

relationships a lot of negative space

and deep heavy concentration of type on

a page learning how to use this

translates into every facet of design

not just 2D design with type but also

three-dimensional design once I learned

how to design a poster I could design a

room I could do interior design I could

design furniture and all these things

I've done anything that I can think of

because I understand the formal

relationship that exists when you start

to put things on a page or on the screen

and this to me is a ginormous unlock you

cannot in my opinion be a great designer

if you don't understand typography what

I love about what you just said and my

key takeaway around this is you said the

manipulation of the arrangement of

letters and words for people to

understand the message at the core of

that for me is you are not just making

something pretty you are making

something that effectively communicates

what you're trying to convey what you're

saying is if someone misses that Mark

they're probably just good and not great

am I hearing that right yeah in my

opinion you cannot be a great graphic

designer if you're not a great

topographer too and in fact if you look

through the design annuals in topography

and other International design

competitions you almost always see the

people who win are the best typographers

in the bunch they understand space they

understand color and texture and

contrast in creating tension and

releasing tension they know how to

create primary secondary tertiary reads

and they also know how to do very

beautiful expressive typography as well

we recently had James Victoria on her

show and he does something totally

different which is something that many

of you are going to say well Chris I

watched an episode now you're

contradicting yourself no you my friend

are not paying careful attention enough

right if you think it's a contradiction

James does hand-drawn letter forms and

he takes it to an art form where his

scribbles his brush marks and his

personal handwriting become so beautiful

that they become art itself just the way

that somebody is able to put ink on a

page I kind of draw a parallel to

Chinese calligraphers and if you've seen

them work it's a thing of beauty they're

using ink on a page and they don't have

two shots at this there's no white

there's no building up they just draw

with The Strokes and calligraphers

master calligraphers an artist can

recognize the skill level from one

person to another who's put in 10 20 30

000 hours of practice versus someone who

just starting they can see that so James

primary communication thing isn't about

whether you can read this easily or not

he wants you to work at it to decipher

the meaning or the words that he's drawn

is not illegible but it does require

some work but in that instance you stop

and you try to figure it out and when

you can figure it out a smile happens at

least in your mind now James is not

writing the Declaration of Independence

from the Bill of Rights he's usually

using one or two words or an expression

idea and that's all that's on his

posters and his design and he's

designing this for book covers he's

designed this for posters he's not

designing this for you to read a

manuscript because it would require too

much mental labor you know it's too

intellectually demanding for you to

figure out on any kind of long-term

consistent basis so you have to kind of

weigh what is the intention and the goal

of what it is I'm designing and mix that

with the right approach for the most

part 80 to 90 of what you do is going to

be legible functional typography but if

you follow all the rules it's going to

be really really boring even Massimo

vignelli will talk about this one of the

same quotes is something like grids are

like underwear they're meant to be used

but not seen so so many people like put

grids on everything and it's like yeah I

get it you understand Swiss design

boring you have to learn how to use all

the notes and sometimes the space in

between the notes is the music I'm

borrowing from Massimo again damn that's

a hell of a quote about the unders he's

good at quotes I mean there's a whole

mass of finale Canada that I hope to

learn all of them I love that it's a

conversation and what tools and methods

non-verbally or verbally like I think of

things in communication are you using to

convey the message like with James it's

the whole design is meant to be a mind

game once it clicks you're like oh my

God I'm in the know this is no longer an

inside joke right versus what you're

talking about where you're doing book

covers or manuals or whatnot and there's

like you have to guide the person with

the type and I think that's just

incredible that concludes part two of

this and I hope you find this to be

enlightening in terms of how important

typography is to you as a designer if

you want to upscale I highly recommend

you watch this video right here where

you can actually see me working through

the design problem and see how these

principles apply in real time I hope to

see you sometime soon take care

everybody

foreign